Sunday, March 6, 2011

A Call For Preservation

The road to recovery for our borough’s artifacts must not stop at the RKO Keith’s in Flushing. The process to bring some portion of the aging relic back to life has stopped and started a handful of times before. The theater has been the victim of an unscrupulous developer, vandals, squatters and thieves.

While the rest of Flushing has been transformed in a Renaissance of growth and development, the RKO has sat and deteriorated. The palace at the end of the 7 train line will see a slight rebirth – not to the grandeur it once held, and to some, not to the esteem it deserves.

Private development has repurposed this iconic structure that is such a large part of the public domain, but the list of private and public sites in need of aid grows daily. Where is the fix for the crumbling New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows? Why is the Civic Virtue statue, bedeviled in this edition as misogynistic, in such disrepair? Why does St. Saviour’s Church sit in boxes in a warehouse?

51 comments:

Joe
said...

The city wants a tenant to sink their own money into it a only to have the crook unions and park workers attached to the deal.Back in the 70's the mobbed up unions beat the hell out of the roller rink operator and drowned his dog.

Donald Trump wanted no part of it after reading the contract and all the demands the city drew up. Who is going to spend $80 Million dollars only to have the city and union's tell them how to run it, how many useless pieces of sh*t need to be on the payroll ?That park is a disgusting mess of garbage, vagrants, human feces. The Westinghouse time capsule is used as a toilet. The ground and benches are covered and stained with urine and feces all summer long till the end of August.There is nothing wrong with the NYSP structurally -Not yet anyway. The red and white wall has settled into the mud, cracking but that wall, mezzanine and map will have to go in order to excavate and back-fill the plyle caps the tent support collums sit on (that's the stabilization process) it anyway.I have been in the building with an engineer, after tuning some audio equipment in the new theater. Another study is not needed. The city needs to listen to the engineers and quit stalling. If that structure fails in a bad way its gonna cost them more and perhaps a couple lives to demolish it.

LOL--pretty closeThe actual words to the contractor building the theater were "Dont lay one finger on it"They offered wanted to sandblast cleanup and paint around the main entry gate pro-bono. Its still a rusting mess.

The city did let 2 volunteers repaint a section of retaining wall for that new roller thing so the press photos would look good.

Unions are theifs that jack up costs and make it hostile to operate. I have seen union electrician sons and brother inlaws do such sloppy work they should be jailed along with the people that signed off on it.A local IA house boss will call everybody off the job, walk off and hold you over a barrel if you insult them too.....arogant pricks all of them.I have had an IATSE boss come at me with a baseball bat in Madison Square Garden for moving a sound monitor into the correct position, the idiots couldn't read a stage plot they literally put the monitor in front of my guitar pedal board---DuhProfessionals my ass the only qualification is just being blood related. This was always the case working in NYC they run all the boards and screw up your sound & lights, spit in your food rider if you don't kiss their ass or tip them in advance.Venues, company's, building owners should have the option to interview and hire their own people and not have these fat bums and strong arm racketeers forced on them

As far as Corona park goes all I seen is fat black union people driving carts with the cabs full of wrappers and coffee cups watching blue busses of Rikers Island inmates with brooms and bags doing all the work.

"Where is the fix for the crumbling New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows? Why is the Civic Virtue statue, bedeviled in this edition as misogynistic, in such disrepair? Why does St. Saviour’s Church sit in boxes in a warehouse? "

They forgot to ask:

Why does out newspaper promote prostitution by publishing whore ads in its classified section?

Unions are theifs that jack up costs and make it hostile to operate. I have seen union electrician sons and brother inlaws do such sloppy work they should be jailed along with the people that signed off on it.

Joe supports the illegal Mexican workers I see more than the American workers.

when was the last time you visited the park - I go often BTW, cycling etc.

It is a great park -

also - do you really think that we would host the tennis open in a DUMP!? do you know how many celebrities, sports and otherwise plus the mega wealthy come to the park during that time? come on - even if you don't get out much - it's not common sense . . .

I go there quite often. It hasn't changed since 2007. The pavilion is falling apart, the fountain of the planets is a filthy disgrace, actually, none of the fountains work, the pavement is broken in many areas and there are several missing lampposts. And that's just the major damage.

Oh I get it now. Babs visits that park to smooze with the assholes during the US Open.Take a look at that park the remaining 50 weeks a year Babs.

Union labor.I worked in entertainmentI see no reason to need 8 IASTE guy's 120 man hours @ $52hr (12 hour day) to do the job of 2.For example this is what it takes to bring a small guitar amp into a 3200 seat theater like The Beacon.

"Oh I get it now. Babs visits that park to smooze with the assholes during the US Open.Take a look at that park the remaining 50 weeks a year Babs."

Has anyone in this particular forum noticed that little addition right nearby . . .CITIFIELD . . . ? the name ring a bell to anyone? . . . in fact, it's soooooo close that one can park in the park's various lots and walk across the bridge to the game?

I thank you for linking your past forum pics of the park, but they were taken a few years ago - changes have been made and the park - on a nice day - is frequented by many.

I love my Queens' parks - Flushing Meadows being one of them. I bike ride there - play pitch n' putt, walk, etc. TRY IT - YOU'LL LIKE IT.

Also - "Joe" I know the union you are referring to, and I unfortunately have to agree with you on this. THEY and unions like them, give unions a bad name. BUT, not all are the same.

Babs: CITIFIELD SUCKS.I cant get into the junkyards and have my one cold street beer wile I get my Classic cars worked on all dam summer.The cops give tickets and block off all the triangles entry streets, traffic is hell.

I can believe 45,000 jackasses actually pay $$ to watch the Mets loose must all be Bloomberg voters

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